Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright…
“The Tyger,” William Blake
Dost thou know who made thee…
“The Lamb,” William Blake
children, children, black&white
do you know who made you
made you black
made you white
made you neither
day&night
children, children, black&white
do you know who loves you
we will see you
hold you tight
our precious children
black&white
—P.L. Thomas
i am so tired
i can barely lift my arms
i struggle to carry myself
from one moment to the next
•
there are two photographs
of my mother lying in the sun
both dated JUL 71
she is so rail thin
i fear she could not stand
or lift a finger if needed
i am reminded of another photograph
of my sister and me on the floor
dated AUG 68
we are so rail thin
that my grandmother cried
when my mother showed her
•
we drive past a canopy of wisteria
in the early days of a pandemic spring
i am sure i know the word “wisteria”
because of my mother who loved purple
•
when i look at photographs now
there is a melancholia of recognition
everyone captured in these moments
wanted to live forever like a photograph
—P.L. Thomas
i am losing track of time and space
and 3-D
i am flattening out
flattened
here and square on the floor
like a tile
i misread the consequences
of gravity
thinning out to almost nothing
fretting
please be careful where you step
and stand
i cannot bear the weight of you
on me
in this grave situation i did not expect
so soon
i have worried myself paper-thin
useless
we will not fill up and drift away
it seems
but wither to almost nothing
collapse
•
if you find the time
and me here on the floor
lift me gently before
folding me into a paper airplane
take me to the tallest building
to send me on one last flight
—P.L. Thomas
I hunger to commit the act of touch.
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
we stopped shaking hands
we kept each other at arm’s length
we were so afraid of dying
we soon stopped living
we remembered each other’s finger tips
we dreamed about each other’s lips
no one was simply waving
everyone in fact was drowning
the shorelines left abandoned
beaches stretched like barren deserts
we stopped shaking hands
we kept each other at arm’s length
we were so afraid of dying
we soon stopped living
—P.L. Thomas
the little/ lame balloonman/ whistles
[in Just-], e.e. cummings
i.
you say “existential”
to my 5-year-old grand-daughter
talking about the homeless man
wearing camouflage
& sitting cross-legged
by the highway
ii.
while waiting on our pizza
the balloon woman
makes her a butterfly
with pink wings
a yellow body
& a Sharpie® smiley face
iii.
she wears the balloon butterfly
on her tiny child’s arm
sitting in her car seat
worrying about her brother
popping the balloon
when she gets home
iv.
i tell her balloons & butterflies
are both beautiful colorful
frail & certain to die
so we should enjoy them
while we have the chance
& not worry about that
v.
we try to soothe her
by saying we have pictures
of the butterfly balloon
that will last forever
but she says “except a video”
so you record her theory of balloons
vi.
balloons pop if there’s something spiky
then you cry & cry & then you get one later
i’ve got a balloon butterfly
& i’m never going to pop it
sometimes i’m going to pop it
& that’s okay i’m going to stop thinking about it
vii.
you tell her just to repress her feelings
& accept this is as part of life
that sometimes things break
just is what it is (we’re laughing)
no need to feel anything about it
& she says okay too seriously
viii.
she falls asleep as we drive
the balloon butterfly clinging
to her tiny child’s arm
too beautiful & terribly frail
i carry her in sleep-heavy in my arms
like a balloon or a butterfly
—P.L. Thomas
The day I die, the day I die
Where will we be?
“Day I Die,” The NationalI want today to be far away already, far away like a runaway balloon
“Eleven,” Sandra Cisneros
after i shuffle off this mortal coil
after i no longer cling to this corporeal thing called My Life
if you still love me
if you can still love me
do not post pictures of my dementia on social media
do not there document that physical and mental decline
me crouched empty-eyed in the corner like a child
except for the face and clothes of an elderly man
please find something to remember
to share of the fleeting better me
if you can
or simply do nothing not even a zero
because i am no longer there or even any Me
the balloon has been set free from the string
rising finally and then completely out of sight
—P.L. Thomas
i am the last person my father spoke to
my swollen father
wheel-chair bound
sitting beside my mother
stripped of speaking
by a stroke days earlier
his voice rough and faint
calling me by name
to take him to the bathroom
and explaining not a bedpan
in a simple request of his son
moments later on the toilet
surrounded by three nurses
my father there surrendered
despite the shared persistence
of his pacemaker and those women
we rushed my mother out
gathering in the hallway
trying to calm her solitary groaning
incomprehensible and terrified
like the muffled pleading from the room
people go to the bathroom and people die every second
—P.L. Thomas
Your poetry’s bad and you blame the news
“Norman Fucking Rockwell,” Lana Del Ray
i love a woman who swears
xxxxxcussing often and beautifully
xxxxxas the sun and moon command the sky
xxxxxsinging along to songs that begin “goddamn”
xxxxxdropping a tune as offensive as the profanity
i love a woman who swears
xxxxxtelling me she’ll never leave me
xxxxxlike she is commanding me to go to hell
xxxxxcussing up a storm that ends in rainbows
xxxxxjust to ask me if i like her nails
i love a woman who swears
xxxxxtexting me what is this shit
xxxxxwhen i share a draft of this poem
xxxxxchallenging me ruthlessly along the way
xxxxxto saying she likes it and just kidding
—P.L. Thomas
Underwater, you’re almost free
If you want be alone, come with me
“Rylan,” The National
i.
the most often thing
was his heart lifting
out of his chest (it seemed)
the length of her legs
from bare knees to feet
and the joints along there
the most often thing
left empty and alone until
this of her filled him to bursting
ii.
nature is a force he said
not a sentient creature
an avalanche but not a squirrel
like loneliness she asked
sitting on bed’s edge in such a way
her hand resting atop her foot
later she was disappointed in him
welling slowly but fully into anger
like waves washing away a sandcastle
iii.
he began to imagine her
fourteen years in the future
layered unknowably around those eyes
how does anyone survive he wondered
the thousand little cuts of disappointment
that must erode the beach of their love
—P.L. Thomas
Round here, she’s slipping though my hands
“Round Here,” Counting Crows
i texted you in the fog of waking
having not responded the night before
i didn’t fall asleep
i past out
you replied
correcting me as you do
your sleep was so serious
that you went back in time
you often ask me to say hell
as entertainment so i thought
past out is what we say around here
like my extra syllable in hay-uhl
father’s day was a couple days ago
the recent past now passed
while you have been away
i have been looking at my hands
with summer tanning and 58 years
they look even older than usual
but they are all i have left of my father
who passed away two summers ago
mine not exactly like my father’s
because no one has those giant hands
but i see him more and more each day
in my own hands reaching into our past
i texted you i am sorry i am old
carrying almost more past than i can bear
and you asked me about my father’s day
although you know i hate holidays
because they become less holy
but burdens of remembering loss
these things, they go away
replaced by everyday
while i am here mishandling being alone
and you are there
i imagine us on your couch
i lean my head back and close my eyes
so i can only feel the arch of your foot
and not see my father’s hands there
i will not look
i will not let go
—P.L. Thomas
